Goodbye Life
by The Pirate Illusionist
Summary: Five years after the plane crash, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 finally get to go home but have they changed because of their time on the island?
1. Going home

**Disclaimer: I do not own LOST**

* * *

The sun was barely coming up over the horizon which made that time around six o'clock in the morning but no one really knew what the time was anymore while they were on the island. The passage of days was getting harder to tell since the hatch blew up but Jack had taken a few things from the others that helped them tell that it had been at least five years since the plane crash. Life on the island had been very eventful even up until this day. The waves were slowly moving in and out from the shore as most of the survivors slept. Because they were asleep, the survivors did not even notice something coming towards the island over the horizon.

"Mommy…" a little boy was shaking Claire awake and her eyes flew open.

"Yes, Aaron?" she asked with a yawn.

"I think I see something on the ocean."

She gave her five year old son a smile and let out a quiet laugh. He was always playing games like this, saying that he say something on the horizon. He once told Jack and the whole island was thrown into massive chaos. A few people threatened to smack the boy for making up that there was nothing there. That was when Claire told Aaron when he was going to play these games he should only play them with her and Charlie.

"You do? What is it this time?"

"No, mum! I really do!"

She smiled and she saw Charlie open his eyes and glance over at Aaron.

"What's the matter, mate?" he asked the boy.

"I saw something!"

"Again?"

"For real!"

Charlie gave the boy a grin and leaned over and messed with his blonde hair. "Sure, Aaron."

"I did! I did!" Aaron ran out of the hut.

After the first year of living on the island, the survivors of Oceanic 815 decided to build huts to live in. Charlie and Claire became close and decided to live in a hut together. A month after that, Claire had figured out that she was pregnant again. She ended up having twins and they had to find some way to add another room on to their hut to make room for the two new children.

Claire let out a sigh. "I'll go see what is going on with him."

"If you want, I could do that instead, love."

"Don't worry about it, Charlie. I should see if Rebekah and Noah are still asleep anyway." Claire slid out of the makeshift bed the two slept in, revealing a pregnant stomach.

She slipped into the other room of the small hut and saw the two three year olds still sleeping. She gave a relieved sigh because she knew that Aaron would get up and sometimes wake his brother and sister. She gave Charlie a nod that meant the two were still asleep and she went outside of the hut. Aaron was nowhere in sight and this started to worry Claire. What if something happened to him?

"Everything alright, Claire?" she head someone ask from behind her and she turned to see Jack standing there.

"Aaron is playing his games again. He woke me up, saying that he saw something again and then took off when Charlie and I tried to play along."

Jack put his hand on his chin and looked thoughtful for the moment. "He might have ran off to get Sydney."

"Will you help me?"

Jack nodded and the two of them headed over to the hut that was Kate's. Kate lived in one of the huts almost in the jungle. She lived with her daughter Sydney, who she had named after the place where the plane had came from. No one knew who the father of the girl was, not even Kate. She came with Jack back, after escaping from the others. A few months later she started to show that she was pregnant.

"Kate," Jack called and it took a few minutes but soon the woman appeared.

"What do you want, Jack?"

"Aaron says that he saw something and we all know that Sydney is like his partner in crime. We came to see if he came here."

Kate looked at Claire and gave her a smile. She walked back into the hut for a moment and then reappeared, face pale. "I think he might have."

Claire spun around on her heel. "AARON!" she started calling out for the young boy.

Jack looked down the beach and saw two small figures walking down to the ocean. He smiled a little. "Claire, I think that they are right down there."

Claire started down to where Jack was pointing and Kate took off running. Claire wanted to run but she was pregnant and Jack had already advised her to take it easy. He walked down with Claire and they arrive a few minutes after Kate had. Kate already pulled Sydney away and was telling her that she shouldn't have scared her like that.

"Sydney believes me!" Aaron declared.

"Aaron, you shouldn't do this…we are going to have to talk about when it is time to play games and when it isn't," Claire said, getting down on her knees so that she could look the five year old in the eye.

"Something out there!" Five year old Sydney said, pointing her finger out at the ocean.

Jack messed with the girl's dark brown curls and then looked out at the ocean. "I don't see…wait a minute…"

"What is it?" Kate asked Jack, standing up so that she was beside him.

"Boat," Aaron said with a grin.

Claire stood up and went beside the other two adults as they stared out at the ocean.

"There really is something there," Kate said, voice full of disbelief.

"Claire…" Jack started.

"Yes?"

"Tell Charlie there is a boat and make sure that he tells Hurley."

"But Hurley will…"

"Exactly."

Claire nodded and started up the beach to where her hut was. She noticed that Charlie had fallen back to sleep after she left and she let out a laugh at how quick that happened. She planted a kiss on his cheek and his eyes opened.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Aaron saw a boat."

"Claire…"

"This time it is true."

Charlie jumped out of bed and grinned. "I can't believe it!"

"Jack wants you to tell Hurley."

Charlie took off down the beach without a shirt on, looking like a madman. He started to shout as he kept on running that it made Kate and Jack look up at him and laugh. Claire picked up her two children from their makeshift bed.

---

An hour passed and the boat had sent a life boat out the island to see what was going on there. A man had said that a man with a boy came and told them about this island. The two had been on a boat and came to Sydney. It had taken them two years to actually get there because they had to stop for the rainy season on some island and they set off again.

"So, how long have all of you been here?"

"Five years," Jack said.

"What took you so long?" Charlie asked.

"Do you know how hard it is to find an island like this?" the man spat.

"Could have sent a plane," Hurley said.

The man smirked. "That would have worked but we thought you had enough of them. We spent two and a half years trying to locate you and then we spent the other half sailing around for you. We were about to give up and on this last journey, we found you."

"How long will it take us to get back to civilization?" Jack asked.

"A little over a week to sail to Fiji and then we are actually going to put you on a plane that will fly you back to Sydney." The man looked around the group and gave them a smile. "Are all of you ready to go back home? If you are, pack up because we're leaving at noon."

The was rushing about as many of the survivors found items that they wanted to take back with them to real civilization. Kate stood there and let out a sigh, not running off like the others in her group to gather her things.

"Kate…what is it?" Jack asked her.

"They are going to arrest me when we get back."

"No they won't."

"Jack, I'm sure that they will."

"Kate…"

"Will you take her if they do?"

"Sydney?"

"Yeah, I know that she likes you and I think that you would be well suited to take care of her."

"I don't…"

"Please?"

"Fine…I'll do it for you."

"Thank you so much, Jack!" She threw her arms around his neck and he awkwardly put his arms around her, returning the hug. "You don't know how much this means to me!" She let him go and went to get her few things.

---

At noon, they loaded the boat up with all those who had been on the island. They looked back at the place they had called their home for all that time. They knew that this might as well be the last time they would look at the island. The boat set sail and they headed in the direction of Fiji so that they could get the survivors there and onto a plane to get them to Sydney. They were finally getting to go home for once and for all.

* * *

A/N: I will try and get another chapter up soon. I hoped that you enjoyed the chapter! You'll get to see what happened to the survivors. 


	2. Sydney

**Disclaimer: **I do not own LOST...

* * *

The trip from the island to Fiji took almost the whole week to get there and then the survivors were made to get onto a plane. They flew to Sydney, Australia, the place where everything had started in the first place. Not many were sure that they wanted to go to Sydney and were fine with just staying in Fiji but they had to move on. The two trips they took were rather uneventful and seemed to have flown by so fast that the survivors weren't sure if they were just dreaming that everything happened. The plane touched down in the familiar airport that the survivors remembered looking the exact same way as when they set off years ago. They were practically kicked off the plane and made to gather in the airport. They looked tired even though they had a week on a boat and then a few hours on a plane. News reporters swarmed around them and questions started up but all the questions sounded the same to them. The man that had been on the boat with them had stepped in front and put up his arms. 

"Who are you?" asked one of the reporters.

"I am Jason Nichols, part of the search party. All the survivors will be free for interviews if they want after they go to the hospital for exams."

They fought through the sea of cameras and reporters and they all forgot how much the world was actually like. They were put into vans and taken off to the hospital to see if there was anything wrong with them. DNA tests were used on the children to see who they really belong to and some vaccines were distributed so that no one would catch any diseases... or transmit them.

The door opened to the room Kate was sitting in and she looked over to see a man in a police uniform standing there. He gave her a scowl.

"Well, well...Ms. Austen..."

"Yes officer?"

"I'd really like to arrest you right now..."

"But?" Kate asked, confused.

"I can't." He pulled out a piece of paper. "Orders that say you are pardoned of all charges"

"What?"

"But we'll be watching you...I hope you know that." The man left the room.

Kate sat in the room alone and in shock from the news. Now she could be with her daughter and she wouldn't have to give her up. Then, there was Jack and what she felt for him but she didn't know what to do about that.

_"Kate, when you are safe, tell me that story." Jack's voice came through the walkie talkie._

_Kate felt the tears run down her cheeks as she glance over at Sawyer, who was still at gun point by Pickett. She did not want to leave Sawyer there because she actually loved him but there was still something she felt for Jack deep down. Sawyer was going to be shot and either she could get out of there or watch him die. She clutched the walkie talkie like it was a person._

_"Kate, did you hear me?" Jack asked through the walkie talkie._

_She put it near her mouth and she knew her voice was shaking as much as her hand holding the walkie talkie was. "Y-yeah...but Sawyer..."_

_"GET OUT OF THERE!"_

_"Jack, please!"_

_"I can't do anything for him!" She thought she could hear anger in his voice._

_"I don't want to leave him."_

_"I can only get you out of there. Now go!"_

_She looked at Sawyer and he met her eyes. "Go Freckles. There's nothing you can do for me now. Might as well safe yourself."_

_"Sawyer..." her voice was breaking._

_"You heard Doc, now go!"_

_His eyes pleaded with her to go and against her own stubborn wishes, she felt her legs move. It was like her legs had a mind of there own. She was a good distance away from the site of the cages when she heard a gunshot and she fell to her knees. The tears fell harder and she wasn't sure that she could go any farther. She managed back to her feet and kept running as fast as she could. There was nothing that she could do now even though her mind was telling her to go back because she didn't want to see if there was a body._

A doctor interrupted her thoughts as he walked into the room where Kate was sitting. He stood in front of where she was sitting with a file in his hands.

"Ms. Austen...we checked the child and she is your child and now we know who the father is. We have this envelope if you'd rather look at it rather than having someone like me telling you."

"Thank you."

"Both you and your daughter are completely healthy." He handed over the envelope to her and headed for the door. Before going out, he said, "We are going to send your daughter in."

Kate held the envelope with shaking hands and she did not know if she really wanted to open the envelope. In her hands, she held the truth about her child's father. What if it was Sawyer? Could she handle that? But what if it was Jack? She didn't know if he wanted to have a daughter at this moment.

_"Jack, where are we?" Kate asked, out of breath._

_"The other side of their island. Juliet said that there would be a boat over here."_

_"When did you trust her?"_

_"I don't," he said, finding the boat and untying it from the dock is attached to._

_Jack help Kate in the boat and then started to sail away toward the other island, as they figured out that they had been on a separate island._

_Kate turned on Jack suddenly. "Why didn't you save him, too?"_

_He shrugged. "There was nothing I could do. He would have tried to shoot him either way."_

_"You could have tried! Why only me?"_

_He looked at her, anger coming over his face. "You loved him more, that's easy to tell. They had a camera near the cages and I was about to escape. I stumbled in to the camera room and I saw you and him."_

_"So, you're jealous, Jack?" she asked, practically yelling._

_He couldn't meet her eyes as he kept navigating the boat back to the island._

_"It's because you love me, too," she said, "Great, just great."_

_The boat slammed into the sandy shore of their island and sent them flying forward. When they fell, Kate landed on top of Jack. She looked down at him and in that split second, her lips collided with his. There was passion in the kiss and Jack could tell that she had feelings for him, too, and that her feelings were just all jumbled together at this moment. Her hands started to pull off his shirt as they laid there on the deck of the boat._

Kate was pulled out of the flashback in her mind when her daughter entered the room. Sydney gave her a smile and ran over to give her mother a hug. It was like the two had been separated for months instead of just a few hours, if that.

"Do I have a daddy like Aaron does?" Sydney asked her mother.

Kate situated the girl on her lap. "Of course you do."

"Does he love me?"

"Yes, he does."

"Then why don't I know him?"

"It's complicated, Syd. Don't worry you will know who your father is then." Kate looked down at the envelope in her hands and opened it up. She fumbled with the sheet of paper inside and finally pulled it out. She read some of the things on the paper that made no sense to her and soon her eyes fell on the name. Her smile widened and she let out a sigh of relief. "You'll get to know your father really soon." She looked at the door, wondering when they would get done with everything and they could finally have a normal life once again.

* * *

A/N: I hope that the chapter was fine... 


	3. The Last Few Days Together

Diclaimer: I do not own LOST

* * *

"So what was it like to be on an island for five years?" That was the first question asked of the survivors when they were ushered out of the hospital and into another building built for conferences. They were not too thrilled with having to answer any questions of the reporters but they were told that they had to answer a few. The survivors had elected Jack as the spokesperson and now her stood at the microphone, staring out at the sea of reporters. 

"Well...we had to live without a few things. There was a few deaths and sicknesses and it was rough." Jack was not sure how to answer the question.

"How many people died on the island? Were they all natural causes?"

"No, they weren't. Ten people had died while we were on the island." He did not like giving this sort of information away because of the doctor instinct in him.

"Can we have the names?"

Charlie moved to speak. "Isn't that too bloody personal for you?"

The reports did not say anything to that, instead they moved on. The questions went on for more than an hour until the survivors were finally allowed to leave the building. They had been told to expect personal interviews to happen. They stood all together outside of the building when a person from Oceanic Airlines approached them.

"I would like to inform you that Oceanic Airlines will be paying you for what has happened."

The survivors were not sure that the money was enough but soon there were some people walking around handing them checks in their names. They glanced at the numbers on the checks and they all started to wonder where they had got that much money.

Jason Nichols looked at the survivors and gave them a smile. "You may leave any time you want. You can get on a plane and go home or whatever you want to do."

No one moved, staying close to each other near the building. They didn't know if they could leave each other after all this time. Five years ago, they would have left with not a care in the world and would have probably never thought about the people on the plane crash again. Now that they had lived together for five years, they did not want to separate from each other because they felt like a huge family.

Charlie moved closer to Claire and put his arm around her. "Where do you want to go, Claire?"

She looked at him. "I'm not sure that I want to go too far from anyone else."

"Do you want to see where Kate, Jack, Hurley, Sun, and the rest of them are going to live and we can live close by."

"That would be nice."

Charlie removed his arm and moved near to where Kate and Jack stood talking. He cleared his throat and the two of them looked at him. "Where are you two going to live? Claire wants us to live close. You know, so Aaron has Sydney to play with."

Kate smiled. "That would be nice if they could live near each other. I was actually thinking somewhere near LA."

"Like a small town near by?"

"Yeah."

He turned to Jack. "What about you?"

"I thought about going back home."

"Oh." Charlie started to go around to other people to ask them where they were going to move to.

Kate looked over at Jack and gave him a smile. "I got the news on who is Syd's father."

"And who is that?" Jack did not even look at her.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"If it is Sawyer...just say it. You don't have to act secretive about it. It wouldn't surprise..."

"It's you, Jack. You're Sydney's father."

Jack felt his mouth go dry and he finally pried his eyes off the ground. Her eyes caught his, locking her gaze with his. "What?"

"She's your child."

"I can't believe."

"She has your brown eyes."

"I don't know..."

Frustration was clear on her face as she shoved a brown envelope at him. "It's all in there... all the tests, even that one that says that the DNA matches Jack Shepard and Kate Austen. If you can't accept that, well, I guess you'll never be able to be Syd's father."

She stomp away and Jack stood there watching her. He let out a long sigh and ran his hand over his chin where he felt the stubble. He glanced down at the envelope in his hand and let out another sigh as his hand worked to open the envelope. A big shadow fell over top of the envelope in his hands and he glanced up to see Hurley standing there.

"Dude, whatcha got there?"

"Something Kate gave me to look at."

"A love note?"

Jack almost scowled but that changed into a grin when he reminded himself that Hurley was only there to lighten up the mood. "Not quite."

"What I really came over to tell you that is a bunch of us were going to get apartments and houses close to each other. You don't have to but yeah, we all wanted you to know."

"Okay," he fell silent until Hurley finally walked away and Jack put his hand into the envelope and pulled out the papers inside.

He held the papers as his eyes scanned the papers in full. Maybe he actually didn't want to know the outcome of all this. He had just been happy not knowing if Sydney was his daughter or not but now he was anticipating the results as he kept scanning the paper. He read the medical words and he understood them all which made him wonder if Kate understood the words she had read or she just looked for the name. He quickly ran his eyes over everything until he stopped on the part that would reveal the name. He let out a deep breath and looked at the name.

She was right; it was his name.

He glanced up from the papers and looked for Kate who was having a conversation with Claire but at that moment, her eyes connected with Jack's. She gave him a smile and he actually offered one back to her. He saw her say something to Claire, who nodded, and she headed over to him. For a few minutes, the two did not say anything but that was understandable. Nothing was needed to fill the silence between them as Kate soon wrapped her arms around Jack's neck. His right arm, which was not holding the papers, went around her waist and pulled her in close. Her soft breath was against his neck and she could feel the rough stubble against her face as she put her chin on his shoulder.

"Are you going to come and live with us?"

"Well, I have to go and do some other things in LA but maybe."

"Maybe?"

He let out a long sigh. "I don't know, Kate. I don't know what the girl will think."

"You just don't want to be with either of us," she accused.

"We'll have to see what happens."

A voice broke through everything. "The taxis are here to take you to the hotel for the night."

The survivors piled into the cars and were let out at a very nice looking hotels. They all bid each other good night before heading to separate rooms. Only in the morning would they be going their separate ways and leaving each other but no one knew what was in store in the future that seemed to be very close after all.

* * *

A/N: Here is the third chapter. 


End file.
